PMP

Being proactive is an important principle in project management. It means being able to collect and analyze relevant information before deciding on a course of action. By applying this principle, project managers avoid making mistakes in selecting how to manage projects.

There are many ways to manage projects. These ways can be broadly classified as being predictive and adaptive. Predictive ways are chosen when project managers can safely predict the process and outcome of a project as requirements are fixed. When it is not possible to do so, projects managers choose ways in which they can adapt to evolving requirements.

To select the right way, it is necessary to understand project needs before planning for the project. This is in accordance with the principle of seeking to understand before deciding on how to manage a project. The prevailing situation and needs the project aims to fulfill must be assessed before deciding on how the project is to be undertaken.

The situation considered includes the size and complexity of the project as well as the nature of the requirements, that could be either fixed or evolving. Once this has been ascertained, the project manager decides on whether to use a predictive approach or adaptive approach.

Predictive approach is used when unique requirements the project seeks to fulfill are fixed and validated. This makes it possible to define the processes required to achieve the desired delivery to fulfill the requirement. Lifecycles of the project using the predictive approach is defined in four main phases. These include the initiation phase followed by planning. Once planning is completed, the project undergoes an execution as well as monitoring phase.

Adaptive approach is used when the unique requirements evolve with time making it impossible to precisely define what exactly is needed and how many deliveries are needed. If the outcome required changes and there is a need to redesign many times, an iterative life cycle is required. If the number of deliveries required changes and there is a need to deliver many times, an incremental life cycle is required. If changes in both are needed, an agile life cycle is the agile life cycle. At times a combination of both the predictive as well as adaptive approach. In such instances an approach called a hybrid approach is used.

Given the challenges faced in meeting unique requirements, planning must be down systematically. It must start with planning for the big picture and gradually plan for details as more information is collected. This is called progressive elaboration. Since the level of details cannot be established all at once, planning cannot occur all at once, the detailed planning must occur in stages. As the project progresses, the details gradually emerge for the subsequent phase. This is referred to as rolling wave planning.

Through careful consideration of the situational project needs a better understanding of requirements emerge. Hence it becomes possible for the project manager to identify the appropriate methodology in line with the principle of seeking to understand and being proactive.

We often use these words interchangeably. When we grow, we assume we have progressed and therefore, we have become successful. This is not necessarily true. Growth does not necessarily mean progress. With progress, success is not necessarily attained. The words denote very different meanings that must be understood clearly to truly succeed in business.

Growth in Business 

To grow a business means to sell more, to have a larger market share, to have more revenue or profits. The word simply means the output of a business endeavor has increased from one period to another. That is all. It does not mean that with growth, progress is assured.

Progress in Business

Progress requires knowledge sharing has to go hand in hand with growth. If a company sells more products in one year compared to the year before and has developed knowledge and expertise that is retained and shared with all employees in terms of how that growth occurred, it has progressed. It has learned what was done right and what needs to be avoided.

This learning, if properly retained, shared, and leveraged upon characterizes progress. It enables the growth to be sustained over time. It enhances maturity levels of the organization. It imbues a sense of accountability and purposeful commitment to continue the growth. Only then can there be real progress. Otherwise, the growth may happen but without such progress, it cannot be sustained.

Success in Business

Can such an organization that is progressive be deemed to be successful?

Not necessarily. Success is contingent on the extent to which an organization extends its expertise, provides support, and enables all other organizations associated with its growth to grow as well. This includes its customers, its end users, its vendors, its suppliers as well as society at large. It means extending the benefits it has gained to benefit others within its circle of influence. It calls for having a deep-seated commitment to extend support to as many external stakeholders as possible

Transitioning from growth to success

Extending support entails adding value to all companies within its network to develop and sustain an ecosystem within which the organization thrives. When knowledge is shared, and support is provided, value is delivered to all organizations without any expectation of returns.

Such a company is deemed to be successful. It succeeds because it realizes how collaborating with clients, end users, suppliers, vendors as well as regulatory bodies adds value its own success. Hence growth should not be equated with success. To achieve success, both enablers are drivers must be present.

What drives the transition from growth to success

The driver for the progression from growth to progress and onward to success is leadership that is committed to succeed through sustained learning and collaborative effort with all external stakeholders. Leaders that are dedicated to the principle of holistic success which requires all stakeholders to be successful for the organization to succeed. Such leaders seek engagement and growth of all internal and external stakeholders associated with the organization as primary indicators of success, not output and performance of the organization

What enables the transition from growth to success

The enablers for such a transition are sharing critical knowledge and embracing agility

Sharing critical knowledge

This requires developing and sustaining a work environment that facilitates the capture, retain, and share critical experience and expertise gained as the organization grows. This sharing enables employees to leverage on past learning to sustain the progression of its growth. This comes about when sharing of expertise and experience is undertaken as a normal practice undertaken routinely at all levels in the organization.

Embracing agility

To achieve holistic success, such an organization embraces agile practices that focus on adding value to all stakeholders. Adding value indicates seeking continually to increase benefits and at the same time reducing cost associated with acquiring these benefits. The commitment to continually focus on adding value becomes an overriding purpose of such an organization that seeks to succeed.

Hence both sharing critical knowledge and embracing agility are key enablers for making the transition from growth to success. These enablers are driven by leadership dedicated towards serving the interest of internal and external stakeholders. Without such leadership that drives sharing critical knowledge and embracing agility, organizations may experience growth on an ad hoc basis but will be unable to sustain the growth over time to success in business.

Summary and Conclusion

In summary being successful requires growth to be sustained, leveraged upon, and shared. Sustaining growth is premised on continually sharing critical knowledge acquired because of growth. Leveraging on learning that is shared to sustain the growth by continually applying lessons learned enables growth to continue over time. This denoted real progress. Success comes about through the development of a collaborative culture cultivated by leadership that ascribes to the notion that we only succeed when we all succeed. This notion is embedded as a key agile principle that when internalized, facilitates collaboration with all external stakeholders.

Do I qualify for the PMP examination?

The Project Management Professional (PMP) certification application process can sometimes be a confusing one.

In order to qualify for the PMP certification, three requirements have to be satisfied. We will go through all requirements below.

Firstly, you have to either have a high school diploma or a degree in order to qualify for the PMP certification examination. A high school diploma for the purposes of qualifying for the PMP exam is equivalent to SPM/GCSE certificates, STPM certificates, and diplomas in any field of study awarded by a college or university. Additionally, a degree in any field of study, awarded by any competent university, will ensure you satisfy this requirement.

The second requirement is the requirement of at least 3 or 5 years of project management based work experience. If you possess a high school diploma or equivalent, you will need to prove that you have 60 months (5 years) of experience in working with projects within the past 8 years. If you have a degree or equivalent, you will only need to prove you have 36 months (3 years) of project management experience within the past 8 years.

Then comes the question, what is ‘project management based work experience’? For the purposes of this exercise, a ‘project’ is defined as an activity which:

• Creates a unique product, service or result
• Is time-limited
• Drives change
• Enables value creation for a business or organization

So long as your project satisfies the definition above, any project within any industry or specialty, can be used to satisfy this requirement. Common examples include construction projects, process and systems improvement, research, and software development. This is not an exhaustive list, with projects being commonplace across any industry.

This third requirement in order to sit for the PMP exam, is that one obtains 35 hours of project management education/training. As Authorized Training Partners (ATP) for PMI, we offer these 35 hour training sessions online and physically regularly. Please click here for more information on the courses we offer. There is one exception to this requirement. If you have passed the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) certification, you then do not have to take up the 35 hours of PMP training and can directly apply for the PMP examination.

Here at PMPMalaysia, we are happy to review your work experience, and advise if you qualify for the PMP Certification and Examination process. This consultation service will not bear any costs, do reach out to us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to find out more on how we can help.

Projects, unlike operations, are unique undertakings that lead to unique outcomes. They face unique challenges that require an ecosystem where knowledge is easily acquired, produced, and integrated or shared. This way, unique challenges that are faced can be readily overcome through effective and timely knowledge transfer.

Project Managers need to proactively establish the formulation of such an ecosystem. The size and complexity of projects will determine how much effort and time is required to develop such an ecosystem that may be readily deployed to facilitate knowledge transfer in a project.

Knowledge is transferred primarily through codified documents such as records and files or through experience that is not codified. Codified knowledge is explicit knowledge which accounts for 5% of relevant knowledge required. Uncodified knowledge is tacit knowledge that accounts for 95% of knowledge needed to resolve unique challenges in projects. Hence the ecosystem developed should be one that facilitates experience sharing.

Several stages are involved in ensuring knowledge transfer occurs. They include clarifying project responsibilities as well as knowledge required to undertake these responsibilities. For example, an engineer may be required to design a shaft using Computer Aided Design. The knowledge required to do so has to be clarified. In the event this knowledge is not available, attempts should be made to locate the source of this knowledge so that it may be readily accessed.

For knowledge transfer to occur smoothly throughout all phases in a project, a suitable working environment to do so should be provided. Such a working environment should be identified in the planning stage of the project and provided to the team during project execution. The working environment should facilitate knowledge transfer techniques proposed such as work shadowing, networking, training that emerge at different phases of the project.

Apart from facilitating knowledge transfer, project managers should be mindful of the need to store and reuse knowledge that has been produced through knowledge sharing. This can be done through the development of project lessons learned for individual projects. These individual lessons learned may be collectively stored in knowledge repositories that help project teams seek out solutions to problems that were encountered in the past.

The need for fast and effective knowledge transfer is even more critical for projects undertaken using an adaptive approach. This is because to adapt quickly requires the ability to sense a change fast enough to be able to respond to that change in a timely manner.

For agile projects, knowledge transfer is facilitated when planning for sprints, reviewing deliverables as well as during retrospections that occur at the end of sprints. These events called sprint planning, sprint review and sprint retrospective respectively are mandatory events that must be done to facilitate knowledge sharing